


respira

by blacksatinpointeshoes



Series: Hell and Back [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Hell, Pre-Relationship (kind of), References to Depression, Robbie-centric, Sibling dynamic, The Reyes Brothers Love Each Other, the ghost rider is a massive jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-05 13:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12795756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacksatinpointeshoes/pseuds/blacksatinpointeshoes
Summary: Hell is cold, and Robbie is alone. What he needs? A fourteen-year-old kid, apparently.





	1. Hell

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty different from anything I've done before, so I'm hoping it is well received. I'd like to warn that there is a small reference to suicide ideation about halfway through, so the fifth section can be skipped if that is a problem. with everything having been said, enjoy!
> 
> the spanish was translated by the lovely Alina (marvelthismarvelthat on tumblr and Ao3) who has incredible work that you should check out.

“Robbie,” says Gabe, “you can’t keep doing this. You’re going to have to eat at some point.”

Robbie tugs on his gloves, glances over to his younger brother on the other side of the crude fireplace he’s created out of rocks and sticks. “I’m trying, _hermano,”_ he sighs, sitting down heavily in the sand and warming his hands over the flame. “It’s not easy.”

“You can’t keep relying on the Rider to save you,” Gabe urges, even though they both know that the Rider is the only thing keeping him upright. “You have to want this, Robbie. You need to come home.”

Robbie looks Gabe in the eye and says, “Stop it. I know what you’re doing. This isn’t going to work. You can’t manipulate me with my own brother.” He shakes his head. “Get out.”

Gabe’s face twists into an uncharacteristic sneer. “This one didn’t work either, you ungrateful boy,” he growls. “You’ve brought us down here and you have to get me out. This lack of food might not kill you anymore, but it certainly won’t help.”

“I’m trying,” says Robbie, weary. Each form that the Rider takes presents the same argument in a million different ways. Gabe stands from the chair with ease and thunders towards Robbie with a dangerous fury.

“Try harder,” he snaps. “You need to eat. It’s been _months._ The effort I have to put into sustaining your body weakens the both of us considerably.”

“Say it with your own face,” Robbie replies, his voice rising. He won’t stand for this abuse in Gabriel’s voice, with his brother’s eyes. “Say whatever you want but not like this.”

“You insolent _,_ weak _child,”_ barks the Rider, lifting Robbie by the shirt collar and dangling him in the air. “You are nothing without me, do you hear?”

“Shut up,” Robbie says, clawing himself away from the menacing apparition with Gabe’s face. He lands hard on the ground, staring upwards at a bad photocopy of his brother. “Get out of my head.”

“This is the mess _you_ have created, Roberto,” says the spirit of vengeance. “It’s your responsibility –”

“Shut _UP!”_

Silence. The Rider is gone. _Gabe_ is gone. Robbie feels a pang in his chest and ignores the lump growing in his throat, the one that says, _Maybe that was your last chance to see Gabe and you wasted it like this._ Robbie knows that wasn’t his brother but oh, _God,_ did it look like him.

He blinks tears out of his eyes and sits down again by the fire.

 

* * *

 

Robbie wakes up to screaming. Not his. He’s surprised that he fell asleep in the first place, and had done so with such carelessness – he is laying in a wide open area, the fire having fizzled out on its own. He is vulnerable to attack, and yet the night passed without event.

The scream comes again. Robbie has nothing left in this tiny camp so he takes off in the direction of the noise, ignoring the roar of the Ghost Rider. _Continue like this and you’re asking to be killed._

Robbie comes to an abrupt halt when he reaches the source of the sound: a human girl trapped beneath a rock three times her size. She is a child, no more than fifteen. Robbie is sure that he gawks; after all, the only people he’s seen are himself and the Rider’s creations. This girl has a certain solidity that marks _her_ apart from _them_.

“Please,” she whispers, trying to push herself to freedom, “I can’t get out. _Please_ help, oh -” Her cheeks are a ruddy red and her voice catches in her throat as though she is embarrassed to cry.

“Hey,” says Robbie, kneeling down on instinct to speak with her. “It’s okay. I can help you. Where are you trapped?”

“It’s – it’s my legs,” says the girl, sniffling. “I was trying to climb up the rock but it gave out and suddenly I was underneath it.”

“Why were you climbing it?” Robbie asks with a frown, rising to assess the boulder. He circles the rock as best he can and decides that with the Rider’s strength it should be no problem to pick up.  

“I was going to the lookout post,” the girl explains, her voice strengthening as she cranes her neck to look at him. “My village has a rotating lookout so the monsters don’t come. There are four posts around the area, and it’s my turn to guard the East.”

Robbie grunts and shoves the rock off the girl’s legs; she skitters backwards as it tumbles down the rest of the hill and hits the valley floor below. “Village?” he repeats, squinting at her. “You mean there are more people here?”

She nods and points towards the valley, opening her mouth to explain. A horn blares through the area and the girl turns white. _“Monsters,”_ she whispers in a panic. “We need to hide.”

Before Robbie can react, the girl has slipped into a crevice in the rock and shadowed herself in the little nook. The cave must be manmade, most likely by the same villagers who created the lookout post above. Robbie had missed the opening altogether but can now spot places where the stone face was carved into. “Well?” she hisses, eyes darting back and forth. “Are you coming?”

Robbie shakes his head. “The monsters are my area,” he says as the Ghost Rider thrashes gleefully under his skin. “Don’t come find me.”

For the first time in a long time, Robbie feels shame wash over him as the heat of the Rider obliterates his senses.

 

* * *

 

Robbie is too late for the village. For the monsters, he is right on time. All he can do is watch through the Rider’s red-tinged sight as hell’s creatures demolish the town faster than the Rider can demolish them, always one step behind. For every monster that goes down, two villagers are cut down in front of homes now stained red with blood.

The Rider doesn’t stop and check, but Robbie sees their faces. _Human_ faces. That night he will remember every one of them in his dreams, berating him for being too slow and too weak to save them. He looks all the same.

Fight. Kill. Repeat. Here, the Rider drives. With every blow, Robbie is driven backwards until he can barely hear the fighting of the outside world. This is a place he hates almost more than hell – the thicket of the mind, where nothing remains except the imprint of thought itself. Robbie runs through the facts he uses to keep himself steady in these situations, the repetitive words almost like a mantra.

_My name is Roberto Reyes. I am twenty-nine years old. Four years ago I died and came back burdened with the Ghost Rider and its promise of vengeance._

Slap. Kick. Punch. Something wails and it’s not Robbie. Another monster goes down. _My name is Roberto Reyes._ Slam. Shove. Smack. _I am twenty-nine years old._ Slice. Scream. Run. _Four years ago I died –_ strike – _and came back_ – grunt – _burdened with the Ghost Rider_ – roar – _and its promise of vengeance._

The monsters are gone.

Robbie’s body knits itself back into humanity as he surveys the destruction he wrought, breathing heavily. The corpses he created are tossed on the same pile as the villagers killed by the monsters; covered in blood, the two look the same. Robbie feels sick.

The Rider is giddy inside him, restrained in the confines of Robbie’s head but too powerful to control if it wanted out. _Good. This is what we are, Roberto. These are the deserving, the damned souls. They kill and we turn them to dust._

“Stop,” Robbie whispers, bile rising in his throat. “We didn’t save anyone today.”

 _You saved_ her.

The girl from earlier stands at the edges of the valley in which the village was built, a hand covering her mouth. She is a good distance removed from Robbie but he can see the disgust on her face, horrified and afraid. “You’re one of them,” she spits down at him, voice trembling. “You left me alone because you’re _one of them!_ You’re a _monster!”_

Robbie shuts his eyes and takes the shrill sound of her screams, of her grief, and lets it mingle with the Rider’s growls. _You saved her and this is how she repays you._

“You killed my family,” snarls the girl with a ferocity Robbie didn’t think was possible. “You killed them all and it’s _all your fault!”_

She stumbles backwards into the hellish landscape and some instinct in Robbie activates, a primal urge that tells him not to let her go. He can’t explain what it is, exactly, only that he knows that after everything, he can’t let this girl die out here.

No matter how much she hates him, he won’t let her die.

 

* * *

 

The girl’s name is Maia. Robbie coaxes it out of her after an hour and a half of imploring, of promising, of words that are not enough and never will be. He tries to tell her that he isn’t a monster but the sound lodges in his throat, blocked by the threat of tears. This child couldn’t know his greatest fear, after all, that Robbie might one-day give in to the Ghost Rider’s claim that the two of them are hardly different at all.

He won’t. For Gabe, he won’t.

Maia sits on the opposite side of Robbie’s fire, glaring at him. No – assessing him, as though wondering whether he is worth staying around. Her village is gone so he is her best shot at survival but still, Robbie wouldn’t blame her if she left. _It’s all your fault anyway,_ the Rider snaps with a cold attempt of what could be amusement.

“So are you going to just let me starve?” asks Maia with a bit of wry humour in her voice. She is still angry in a way that cuts to her soul but more urgently, she is hungry. She folds her arms and stares across the flame as if presenting a challenge.

Robbie unzips his jacket and takes off his gloves, letting the fire warm him. Hell is cold, and dark, especially at night. It’s only been getting colder the further he ventures in, attempting to find a rip in the dimensional fabric that he can travel through once again. “I don’t have anything to eat,” says Robbie, clearing his throat. The Rider leaves a sour taste in his mouth that he can never seem to shake, as though he’s sucked in a lungful of ash.

Maia raises a brow in a way that is so _teenager,_ so _Gabe,_ that Robbie’s chest hurts. The guilt of his failure earlier forces him to look away. “You don’t have anything to _eat?”_ she repeats incredulously. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“Hey,” says Robbie, tapping the side of his head to remind her of the Rider. “I’m not a bed and breakfast. I don’t provide home cooked meals for every _nino del inferno_ I meet, alright? I’ve never looked for food in this place.”

“You’ve never…” Maia shakes her head in disbelief. “How do you live here, then? You can’t tell me you’ve never eaten before in your life.”

“I don’t,” says Robbie simply. “Live here, that is. I’m trying to get back once my debt is paid. Hoping the guy upstairs will help find a way out.”

“The guy upstairs,” Maia says quietly, her eyes flickering up to meet Robbie’s for the first time since they met. Dark brown, dancing in the firelight. They bring him back to Gabe again. “The monster.”

Robbie doesn’t answer, threatened again by tears. He just bows his head, rests it in his hands. “That’s not what we do,” he whispers, and wills himself to believe it. “He’s just trying to bring bad things to the people that deserve it. Whatever brings people here – damning them, killing them, _I don’t know._ All I do understand is that these monsters have terrible souls. So the Ghost Rider puts them down.”

“And what about you?” asks Maia, prying deeper still. “What about your soul?”

“I didn’t kill your village,” Robbie replies. “If that’s what you want to know.”

Maia responds with only silence.

* * *

 

“I found this,” says Robbie with an animal corpse slung over his shoulder. “I mean, I found it alive, but… you know. Food?”

Maia barely looks at it. “Too lean. Turn the bones into tools,” she tells him. “We can eat the meat tonight and I’ll teach you how to store the pelt. I get cold, you know.”

They go on like this, on and on and on. Maia and Robbie, bickering to the point where it feels comfortable. She hurls insults like breathing, her sarcasm and her spark, her _life_ , and she lets Robbie comfort her at times too. It feels nice. It feels… normal.

Robbie has forgotten so much of what it means to be normal. He’s been disconnected from the world since the day he died, using Gabe as a lifeline to keep himself grounded. There are times when he doesn’t even realise it – the Rider is merely uncomfortable with hell’s temperature, for example, but Maia still looks freezing even when dressed in a thick fur coat. Maia is hungry after a day’s trek as they search for monsters and other villages, releasing the Rider every once in a while and letting the spirit drive. Robbie, on the other hand, only takes any of the meal for himself once the Rider’s screams become too loud to bear.

Robbie has barely been taking care of himself before, pushing the Rider further and further. Without the thing, he would be malnourished beyond imagination. He didn’t mind. For a while he barely even wanted food at all. He may not be able to die, but there was a reason he hadn’t eaten anything in months.

Maia points it out one day during dinner, after Robbie has gotten the hang of hunting the less dangerous animals that roam the hills and valleys of hell. “You know,” she says, leaning in like a ‘gotcha,’ “you always wait until I’m done to eat.”

Robbie, who is watching her, shrugs. “Got to make sure there’s enough. It comes with having a little brother, _chiquita.”_

“Yeah,” says Maia. “But you barely eat even when we have enough to last for a week on one animal, the both of us.”

“Maybe I want to minimize my casualties,” Robbie deflects, shifting his weight on the sandy ground. “Make sure I’m only eating when I have to. These things aren’t hurting anyone but I have to kill them anyway.”

“You’re _skinny,_ Robbie,” Maia says pointedly, gesturing with a whittled knife she is using to pick meat from between two bones. “Have you _looked_ at yourself? Aren’t you _hungry?”_

Robbie is hungry. All the damn time. “I’m used to it,” he says. The Rider is silent. Waiting. That spirit hears Robbie’s meaning loud and clear – _I don’t deserve to eat like you do, to enjoy it_ – and for once the thing shuts up. Maia has been a good influence on the voices in his head.

The little girl from hell picks up the roast over their makeshift fire and slices a large piece in the most impractical of ways. “Eat,” she insists, shoving it towards him. “Don’t make me _make_ you, Robbie Reyes. _Eat_ something.”

And again he hears Gabe.

 

* * *

 

Robbie hates to admit it, but he comes to love Maia. It takes three more months before he realises it, realises that staying in hell isn’t entirely a lost cause. Because at least he has Maia. He holds onto her the way he held onto Gabe, because he has to. He can’t let her go.

 

* * *

 

Then Maia tries to go off on her own with a leg-bone sword and Robbie’s jacket, leaving while he sleeps. Or rather, slipping off while she _thought_ Robbie was sleeping, though he had barely closed his eyes. He hears her rise and is jolted out of tentative rest, disoriented and confused. And cold.

Maia. _Maia._ The first thought is that the monsters have gotten to her. When he sees her, it is to his utter horror that _she_ is going after them.

A horde of the Damned – that is what, Maia claims, the villagers from her home called them – is gathering the way they often do, preparing to hunt and then feed. She looks tiny against the scene, her silhouette painted against a rocky boundary. Fear turns Robbie’s vision white and he races after her, quiet but filled with a sudden reckless urgency.

Maia. _Maia._

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” He catches her by the arm and whips her around, coming face to face with the weapon gripped tightly in her hands. “You can’t just – you _cannot_ go after the monsters, Maia. We discussed this.”

“This is from the same nest that killed my family,” she growls. “You can see the red marks on their necks. You can’t stop me, Roberto. Not now. Not because of this.”

Robbie’s heart is erratic, frantic. “Maia, they’ll kill you.”

“Then I’ll go down fighting.”

“No, you won’t.”

She wrenches away from him, glaring with the same fury he saw that day in the valley. “Yes, I will. And I can. You don’t own me. You don’t even _know_ me. You’re only here – you’ve only ever stayed – because you felt guilty for ruining my life.”

Robbie would be lying if he claimed that it didn’t hurt. “That’s not true,” he says, eyes flicking over to the Damned as he tries to de-escalate the situation. “I’m here because I care, Maia, because I care about –”

“About your brother,” Maia says flatly. Robbie recoils, takes a step back.

“What?”

“You care about your brother, Robbie! Not me! Don’t pretend because it’s not _fair._ It’s not fair to me, because I wanted something like a family and all I get are your stories about _Gabriel!”_ She spits his name with such hatred that Robbie can’t think. “I see you comparing us. I see that I’ll _never_ live up to him, not in your eyes. Every time you say his name –”

“Maia,” he says quietly. “Stop. I’ll hear you out but not _here._ Please.”

She sneers, but Robbie can see her eyes glistening. “You just want your brother, Roberto,” she says coldly, voice trembling with a vulnerability that contradicts her cruel words. “Someone who’s _precious._ Someone who’s always _kind._ The perfect little _hermano_ who’s going off to Stanford, right? Someone who _needs_ you to protect them.” Maia’s voice is rising steadily, raw and hitching.

“Maia, please –”

 _“I’M NOT YOUR BROTHER!”_ she screams, and the Damned all swing around at once to survey their new prey. But Maia is crying freely, her sword arm shaking. She doesn’t notice the threat. “I’m _not_ your brother, Robbie, and while you’re here you’re just going to have to _deal with it!”_

The Damned look hungry. “Maia,” Robbie whispers. “Maia, stop. Honestly, you need to stop.”

The silence goes tense and Maia sees them too, a terrible smile spreading across her face. Before Robbie can stop her she darts towards the pack of monsters and charges them with a cry. Her tiny bone sword is swinging, her stature miniature and insignificant against the hulking creatures.

It takes no time at all for the Rider to intervene. In fact, the spirit and the man work so well together in their defence of Maia that Robbie is almost afraid.

 

* * *

 

Maia leaves the battle alive, but with a nasty scrape on her arm that doesn’t heal. Robbie bandages it, does his best with the tech he has. Maia is quiet for days on end, without so much as a thank you. Robbie’s dreams are filled with the sound of her screams.

The wound gets infected.

Maia starts burning with fever and Robbie realises that the cut is much deeper than he initially thought. He has to get _out_ of this place, get back to SHIELD and find medical attention. Otherwise Maia is going to die. He knows it when he touches her. The Rider whispers, _Let her die. She is nothing._

Robbie has to find the tear. He has to save the girl who saved him.

The scenery starts to look familiar. Robbie almost doesn’t want to believe it. He’s been carrying Maia for kilometres on end, cleaning the wound and changing the bandages and oh God, he doesn’t know _anything_ about medicine. He’s powered on fear and instinct alone.

Then he finds his own mark, three stacked up rocks on the very spot the dimensions collided. Robbie unravels the chain from around his shoulder and sets Maia on the ground. His hands shake ever so slightly as he prays to whatever deity exists to let him through safely. Robbie doesn’t know what he believes in, but he’s glad it has brought him here.

He shuts his eyes and envisions the compound, the portal flickering to existence like ripples on a lake. On the other side is the Playground’s hangar, a shocked Daisy Johnson standing on the other side. Robbie manages a smile as he stoops to lift an unconscious Maia once more, glancing around the hellish landscape that surrounds him.

There is nothing here that he does not want to leave behind.

Robbie steps through and the world turns black.

 

 

 


	2. Post

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD medical, and a shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, so, so sorry.

Robbie wakes up choking on nothing. Coughing, sputtering, trying desperately to inhale with no result. There is heat flushing through his neck and chest and his arm aches with a dull, potent poison and the lights are too bright around him and Maia. _Maia._ Where is Maia?

Robbie shoves the blanket away from his legs and tries to leave the bed, ignoring the vertigo that seizes him. SHIELD medical comes into focus around him as something starts beeping nearby; a sharp prick in his arm makes Robbie realise he’s pulled out an IV line. How long has he been out? What the hell is going on?

He stumbles towards the door, the movement taking far too much effort as he fumbles with the knob. _Where is Maia where is she –_

The girl had been so badly injured when they’d returned that Robbie can’t bear to think of the possibilities, if she’s worsened since coming here, if she’s –

His breath quickens as he cuts off the thought before it can surface and he forces the knob open, finally, stepping out into the hall and coming face to face with Daisy. He reaches out to grab her wrist, his words slurred and nearly incoherent. “Maia where’d’you put her -”

Daisy looks shocked to see him walking around, eyebrows lifted and lips parted in surprise. “Robbie,” she says, not answering his question, “you need to be resting. How did you even get out?”

He stares at her through bleary, glazed eyes, noticing exactly how cool her skin is under his fingers. “I need’d t’ f’nd _Maia.”_ Robbie can’t quite manage to convey the urgency he feels.

Daisy steps closer, a concerned frown tugging on her lips. “You’re burning up,” she says, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Come on. You need to go back to bed.”

“But –”

“Later,” Daisy promises in a voice tinged with confusion. “You need to feel better first.”

Already the world is fading as Robbie leans on Daisy for support, the two of them limping slowly past a room marked ‘quarantine.’ He doesn’t have time to think about it before her strong hands are lying him back down and his vision dissolves into nothing.

 

* * *

 

A few times he wakes up screaming for Gabe –

 

* * *

 

When Robbie finally comes around, Maia is there. He moves to stand but she shakes her head, walking towards him instead. “Hey,” she says with a hint of her usual sarcastic smile.

Robbie looks up at her as though afraid she might disappear at any moment. “They let you see me?” he asks, his voice ragged. His words snag and he bends double, coughs rattling through his chest. “And your arm, it’s –”

“I’m fine,” says Maia, impatient, sitting down on the bed next to him. There she is, back to normal. “Daisy says you’re the one who’s in pretty bad shape.”

Robbie stares at her for a moment, tripping over his words. “You – Daisy, you – you know her?”

Maia’s lips twitch in amusement and she says, “I’ve known her as long as you have.” Robbie opens his mouth to comment but Maia continues to talk as if her remark was ordinary. “I’ve been awake for longer than you have, Robbie. I’m only allowed out for a couple minutes anyway. Apparently –” her eyes twinkle, “I’m a bad influence.”

“And Gabe,” says Robbie, hesitant, “have you seen Gabe?”

Maia’s pleasant expression sours like milk and she turns away from him. “I don’t know. I haven’t asked,” she says shortly, and Robbie is seized with discomfort.

He tugs at the collar of the thin shirt he’s wearing, clearing his throat. “Mm.” The temperature of the room creeps up on him, swallowing him, rising like a wave about to break. “Maia, is it hot in here?”

Maia shakes her head, the same concern that Daisy wore spreading across her face. Maia is too young to wear that concern, barely out of childhood, and yet she has not been a child for many months now. Her body does not know adulthood but her mind knows grief, and those two seem to be the very same.

Robbie wonders if Gabe can wear that tiredness now, unknown to youth. He wonders if Gabe has been wearing it for a long time, but Robbie had just tried to turn a blind eye.

“It’s not even warm in here,” says Maia, breaking him out of his thoughts and returning his attention to her. “Maybe the fever hasn’t broken yet. You were out for a while. I can go get Daisy –”

Robbie shakes his head, inhaling sharply. “No. I’m fine. Daisy doesn’t need to worry about anything else right now.”

Maia looks unconvinced but pulls back, that frown skirting the edge of her expression again. “She’s coming anyway,” says the girl with a calm far beyond her years. She hasn’t looked towards the door but Robbie does, a chill brushing his spine as he realises that she’s right. “You know what that means.”

Robbie glances towards her in alarm, blinking in confusion. “No,” he says, “I don’t, Maia –”

“Who are you talking to?” Daisy swings into the room with a frown, looking straight through Maia and regarding Robbie with wariness. He stares at the girl next to him, so solid and so _real,_ and is forced to draw the conclusions he’d already began to make. “Is your arm feeling any better?”

“My arm?” This, at least, surprises him; Robbie didn’t have any –

Maia’s injury. The battle. The fever that wouldn’t break; the weakness he felt when crossing the barrier. Robbie glances down at his shoulder and sees a white scar peaking out from the sleeve of his tee. Dizziness washes over him as a new set of memories return with the bearing of an oncoming train.

“Robbie?” Daisy has been saying his name, over and over. Maia is silent, watching him, as the scene unfolds; Robbie can’t help but glance at her before addressing Daisy.

“I – I’m sorry, could I be alone?”

Daisy’s frown deepens but she edges towards the door, nodding. “Sure,” she says quietly. “Call me if you need me.” With a soft click she is gone.

Robbie whirls on Maia and is surprised to feel tears building in the back of his throat. _“Again,”_ he growls, channelling the grief into anger. “I told you – I told you! I said – god _damnit,_ I said to stop it – after that trick you pulled with Gabriel I told you –”

It all falls into place. The way Maia had appeared so conveniently. The way she addressed him as Roberto when he’d only ever introduced himself as Robbie. How she claimed she’d known Daisy as long as he had, because she was borne from his mind, dancing off his thoughts. How she played into everything he needed, how she was everything he needed to save himself, and Robbie didn’t even notice.

“You needed to eat,” says Maia, shaking her head with a nonchalant shrug. “I did what had to be done. I didn’t think you’d be so attached.”

“No.” Robbie shakes his head, unwilling and stubborn as a mule. “You can’t – you can’t be _him –”_

“Maia isn’t real,” Maia sneers, picking at her nails. “You knew it all along. The human girl who appeared in hell, begging for you to save her? A village of others who just conveniently were all killed? Without me, you would have _died –_ ”

“Without _Maia,_ I would have –”

“There is no Maia!” Anger looks different on those young, innocent features when Robbie knows where its coming from. “I played a role, Roberto. I played a role to save your life and you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. And I _knew_ you wouldn’t take action if it was your own soul that needed salvation, but her? But _Gabe?_ Tell me you don’t see Gabe every time you look at her.”

Maia gestures to her face, her soft arms with bare imprints of womanhood. She is a child, brown skin and short dark hair and warm cheeks that ache to smile. She looks nearly transparent, now, her features haughty and thin. Robbie can see her skull poking out of her lips and the skeletal wisps of her hands. She is no child. She is the Ghost Rider’s grand plan, and she is not _real._

“But everything that happened –”

“Let _go,_ Roberto,” Maia urges, and momentarily she returns to the laughing girl Robbie thought he knew. But everything about her is false, a ruse, a disguise. “We have much longer to ride together. This cannot break it.”

“Leave me alone,” Robbie whispers.

“I know this is hard,” says Maia gently, “but you’re going to need to accept it. Maia was never real. She is only a part of _us.”_

“Leave me _alone,”_ Robbie says again, voice thick with sorrow. Some part of him refuses to accept it still, that the days and nights spent with this child – his child, in some ways – were nothing more than a sleight of hand. A trick of the light. Maia is nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Maia tells him, and Robbie almost believes that she means it.

“Get out of my head.”

No. _No._ When he looks to Maia again, she is gone without even leaving an imprint where she sat. Robbie supposes she never did.

Robbie can’t speak. He can barely breathe. He opens his mouth and shuts it tight, tears pricking at his eyes, wishing for his brother. In, out. In out. Oh _God –_ The sob builds in his chest is silent as he mourns the loss of the girl who vanished into thin air.

Maia. _Maia._

Robbie bows his head and his vision blurs as tears drip down his nose, his whole body shaking with the effort of staying quiet. Even the Rider is subdued, watching. Robbie wants to scream but can’t, trapped in a place between denial and horror.

The door opens. Robbie doesn’t bother to check who it is.

Daisy sits down next to him and Robbie inhales sharply, his eyes red and his skin flushed. “If you need another minute,” she says, “I can leave. I just wanted to let you know that Gabe is here – we brought him in when you woke up. Do you need anything?”

“Just my brother,” Robbie replies, his voice scratchy. Daisy reaches out hesitantly to hug him, one arm slung tight across his back and the other wrapped tight around his neck as if she never wants to let him go.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Daisy whispers.

Robbie swallows hard and banishes the painful memory of Maia’s smile. She is a secret he’ll take to the grave. For now, though, he needs to look forward and move on, because the world is turning and Robbie can’t be left behind. “It’s good to be home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> despite what you may think, this isn't the last we'll see of Maia! if you're interested in her story, read up on 'out of my mind' as she'll soon be making a cameo. my upcoming fic 'talk to me' will also heavily feature Maia. 
> 
> as always, I do love comments and kudos. have any thoughts and feelings? come yell at me on my tumblr, thoughtsbubble. :)

**Author's Note:**

> for reference: hermano is 'brother'; niño del inferno is hell-child; chiquita is 'little one.'
> 
>  
> 
> as always, comments/kudos are very much appreciated. I am on tumblr as thoughtsbubble if you'd like to yell at or with me :)


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